Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an I/O module, a setting device, and a method of building a process control system.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2014-214364, filed Oct. 21, 2014, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Description of Related Art
In a plant, a factory or the like, a process control system for controlling various state quantities (for example, pressure, temperature, flow rate, or the like) in an industrial process has been built, and a high level of automated execution has been implemented. In such a process control system, generally, on-site devices called field devices (such as a measuring device, an actuator, or the like) are connected to a controller via an I/O module. The controller controls a manipulation device (for example, actuator) based on the measurement result of a measuring device (for example, sensor) to control the various state quantities described above.
Such process control systems are generally constructed through the following three inspection/testing procedures.
(i) FAT (Factory Acceptance Test)
FAT (Factory Acceptance Test) for hardware and software is performed on various devices (such as the above-described field device, I/O module, controller, or the like), which constitutes the process control system, before they are shipped from the factory.
(ii) SAT (Site Acceptance Test)
SAT (Site Acceptance Test) is performed to verify whether or not the above-described various devices, which have been installed to the plant or the like, have a required functionality, performance or the like. Specifically, it is verified whether or not equipment, installation and wiring of the above-described various devices are performed normally. Then, it is verified (checked) whether or not connections in the plant or the like are made correctly. Also, setting and adjustment of the various devices, signal checking between the I/O module the field device, or the like are performed.
(iii) SIT (System Integration Test)
SIT (System Integration Test) is performed to verify whether or not the process control system built in the plant or the like works as it is designed as a whole. Specifically, signal checking between a manipulation monitoring terminal arranged at the upper side of the controller and the I/O module, signal checking between the manipulation monitoring terminal and the field device, or the like are performed.
When the above-described procedures are completed, commissioning of the process control system built in the plant or the like is performed. When the commissioning is normally completed, operation of the process control system is shifted to a full-scale operation. Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2012-208694 discloses an art of easily checking a connection state, a commissioning state, and an operation state (analog input/output) of the field device and verifying the progress state of the checking using a device monitoring unit arranged at the upper side of the controller.
The route between the controller and the field devices is determined when the control program used in the process control system is designed in the above-described FAT. Also, the wiring work and the verification work to verify whether or not wirings are correctly connected in the above-described SAT are performed along the route that is determined when the control program is designed in FAT. Therefore, in the conventional art, the above-described FAT, SAT and SIT should be performed in this order, thereby, it takes a long time to build the process control system.
Though depending on the size of the plant, it takes one or two years that the full-scale operation of the plant including the process control system is started since the plant design (the specification design of the plant including the process control system to be built) is completed. Moreover, it takes about three months to complete the above-described three procedures (FAT, SAT and SIT).
The main settings for the device arranged at the upper side of the controller are logical settings relating to the process control. On the other hand, the main settings and verification of devices such as the field device and the I/O module are settings of the measurement range and physical settings of the verification of measurement/operation accuracy or the like in the measurement range. Therefore, if it is possible to perform the above-described procedures in parallel, it is possible to shorten the time required for the above-described three procedures and to accelerate the full-scale operation of the plant including the process control system by the amount of the shortened time.
The present invention provides an I/O module, a setting device, and a method of building a process control system that are capable of shortening the time of building a process control system.